Topline:
Mount Waterman, the closest ski resort from Los Angeles, has found a new buyer after being put up for sale since early May.
Why it matters: The resort is considered a well-kept secret in L.A. Its amazing ski terrains and mom-and-pop vibes have inspired a close-knit community of skiing devotees.
What's next: The property's listing agent and longtime Waterman regular Marc Ramirez said the property will soon enter escrow, but sale could take some time to finalize.
Los Angeles has premium and accessible nature in spades: Beaches. Mountains. Deserts. Of course, powdery slopes are just a hop and a skip away in the form of the Mount Waterman ski resort.
The skiing spot sits thousands of feet atop the San Gabriel Mountains, a straight shot on Highway 2 through La Cañada Flintridge. It offers three chair lifts, some 150 acres of skiable terrains for shredders of different levels, a website that is very much stuck in time — and a history as colorful as it is idiosyncratic.
All this can be yours for a price of about $2.3 million. Waterman was put on the block earlier this month, after stretches of closures in recent years.
According to the property's listing agent, a potential "lucky buyer" has been identified out of a "couple dozens of offers" to be the new owner of the beloved spot. Soon, the property will enter escrow, which could still take some time to finalize.
"I have so many offers, if this person so much blinks, we're just going to move on to the next [offer]," said Marc Ramirez with Pacific West Business Properties, Inc.
At just 50 miles from downtown, Waterman is L.A.'s closest — and arguably the most under-the-radar — ski resort.
"I've been telling people about Waterman all my life," says Gary Mull, owner of the ski and snowboard repair shop, Gary's Sharper Edge, in Burbank. "I always say, 'Have you heard of Mount Baldy?' Everybody says yes. I go, 'Have you heard of Mount Waterman?' Everyone says no.'"
Ingrid P. Wicken, founder of the California Ski Library in Norco, says it's not an overstatement to call the resort a "best-kept secret" of L.A.
"It's still got the small mom-and-pop feel," she said.
The resort's current owner Rick Metcalf bought the place with his brother and friends in the mid-2000s, as they were Waterman diehards who didn't want to see their beloved old haunts closed down and forever lost.
"The current owners live in San Diego," said listing agent Ramirez, who himself is a Waterman diehard who was one of the first people to snowboard at the resort in the '90s. "They bought it to save it more than anything."
That sense of devotion is palpable in skiers who for generations have flocked to its slopes.
Mull, a lifelong Angeleno and Waterman skier, started skiing when he was a toddler. At 15, he skied at the resort for the very first time.
"We left so early, we thought it was going to be a little further away. We actually drove right past it in the dark," Mull said.
Since that day, he was hooked.
"Waterman is the kind of place where you can forget your wallet, forget your skis, forget your jacket and your lunch and somebody would take care of you," he said.
Like so many before him, Mull took his son to Waterman. He said he once asked the then 10-year-old what was his favorite place to ski?
His son laughed and told him, "Dad, we're famous here. Everybody knows us."
Beyond the close-knit community, the resort's selling point remains the snow — particularly for skiers and snowboarders looking for a challenge.
Mauricio Tassara grew up in Eagle Rock and frequented Waterman with his dad and siblings when he was young. As a teenager, he would hit the slopes several times a week.
"When there was good snow — it was always natural snow — there was an extremely good amount of out of bounds and off run tree skiing," Tassara said.
He remembered going up the lifts, then hiking out of bounds to snowboard down the mountain thick with untouched snow all the way to Angeles Crest Highway. Then he and his siblings and friends would hitchhike back to the lifts.
"And we did that all day long," Tassara said. "We would get fresh tracks every run."
Waterman had another draw, Tassara said — the "small mountain family-owned kind of feel" that remained for decades after the founding Newcomb family started the first rope tow in 1939. Two years later, they opened the first chairlift to the public.
By the time current old-timers like Tassara and Mull were skiing Waterman, the resort was run by Lynn Newcomb Jr. Those many decades where Newcomb Jr. was at Waterman's helm are considered its golden era — where the resort was always open, and the snow was plentiful and good.
Newcomb passed away in 2011 and is still spoken about by the many who have met him with warm reverence.
Saul Traiger worked as a ski patroller at Waterman for more than a decade starting in the mid-1990s.
"When we were going up the lift at like 8 o'clock in the morning, we could see Lynn coming down. He had already been up there checking the snow conditions, making sure the runs were properly groomed," Traiger said. "I'd like to say for Lynn Newcomb Mount Waterman wasn't a business. It was an art form."
But the very thing that has made Waterman possible is what has doomed its recent past. The resort doesn't use snowmaking, relying on nature alone for the powder that has kept its doors open.
"Their motto is snow from heaven, not from hoses," Mull said. "That's how it's been all through our history. It's either we pray for snow, because we don't have enough snow to open, and then once we get the weather, we pray that we have a road."
Case in point, the road to the resort was closed for weeks after the intense series of storm early this year. This winter season, the resort was open for just 12 days, according to real estate broker Ramirez.
That unpredictability might be one reason why Waterman has never gained the kind of mainstream traction as its counterparts.
"The snow is hit or miss. So if Waterman doesn't have snow, then [skiers] go to Mountain High or Snow Summit or Snow Valley," said Wicken with the California Ski Library.
How the pending sale might impact the resort's operations remains to be seen. In the meantime, there are the memories — lots and lots of fond memories.
"It's just a very cherished memory for me as a kid growing up in Southern California where I could go skiing in the morning and go surfing in the afternoon," said Tassara.
Topline:
Advocates say the recently passed post-production tax credit will make California more competitive, but a federal production tax credit may be the blockbuster.
Why it matters: TV and film productions and their post-production work, such as editing, color correction and sound mixing, are being pulled to other states and countries because of attractive tax incentives. It’s hoped this new tax credit will begin drawing work back to California.
Why now: The bill was recently signed into law by Gov. Newsom, although it currently offers $10 million a year, much lower than the $100 million originally asked for. It’s likely to make California more competitive — but a federal production tax credit bill now going through Congress may be the blockbuster. The Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act is co-authored by Sens. Adam Schiff, a Democrat, and Tim Scott, a Republican. President Donald Trump supports it.
The backstory: California started a tax incentive in 2009 to try to stop runaway productions. The current version of the incentive was extended three years ago.
What's next:
Read on… To hear about the limitations of the new California post-production tax credit law.
At Signature Post in Burbank, Mariella Abaunza, the post-production company’s executive vice president for business development, shows off a photo of her talking to Gov. Gavin Newsom at the recent signing of AB 2319 at the Television Academy in North Hollywood.
She was there with the coalition that lobbied for the creation of a new stand-alone tax credit for post-production work done in California.
“It definitely restored my faith in government. ... Advocacy works,” she said.
It was a sizable coalition. Abaunza is president of the California Post Alliance, the post-production industry’s trade group. Leaders of the Motion Picture Association and the Editors Guild were there too.
It definitely restored my faith in government… advocacy works.
The post-production tax credit is aimed at stopping the flight of TV and film work to other states and countries, attracted by generous tax incentives.
While there are existing tax credits for filming in California, under the new law, productions qualify for a 35% to 50% tax credit if post-production work such as editing, color correction, scoring and sound mixing is done in California, even if the filming was done outside the state.
But industry advocates acknowledge there’s a weakness in the law: Proponents initially asked lawmakers to set aside $100 million for the post-production tax breaks. By the time Newsom signed the bill into law, that amount had been drastically reduced to $10 million.
“That's going to get used up in a couple days. … It's not hard to allocate $10 million in post-production in California,” said Stephen Weizenecker, an entertainment lawyer based in Atlanta who advises TV and film productions on how to take advantage of tax credits in U.S. states and overseas.
But he said that regardless of the much lower cap, the credits will make California more competitive.
It's not hard to allocate $10 million in post-production in California.
Abaunza hopes it will be a boost for Signature Post. The 6-year-old post-production company, which mixed sound for films and shows like "Everything Everywhere All at Once," "American Fiction," and "Lessons in Chemistry," has been experiencing a slowdown, like many others.
“We're still ahead of the game, and we still have the largest concentration of post-production talent of anywhere in the world,” Abaunza said of Southern California.
But she said that post-production advantage has been eroded by new facilities and worker talent in the U.K. and Canada, among other countries.
Monica Levinson, executive producer of FX’s "Love Story," "Say Nothing," and many other TV and film projects, points out that those countries have another advantage: a lot more government social services.
She compared that to the U.S. “The one thing that this country has are unions, and it has health insurance, and it has pension plans, and the things that need to be put into the budgets of productions,” she said.
Weizenecker also noted that as much as producers might want to keep production in California or the U.S., they may not be the ones making the decisions about where work is done.
“ If Netflix only gives you so much to spend on the production, including post,” he said, “you're gonna go where it's the most cost-effective.”
While the California tax credit is a step in the direction of keeping productions in the state, a much bigger tax credit is now making its way through the federal legislative process that may be even more transformative.
It’s called the Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act and was co-authored by U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, and Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina. President Donald Trump has also said he supports it.
If the bipartisan birth and early life of the bill isn’t enough to raise eyebrows, what it promises may be: a 20% federal, labor-based tax credit to U.S. TV and film productions where 75% of the days spent on principal photography happen in this country.
The bill would also favor post-production work and extend benefits to productions in some rural areas and places affected by disasters.
“These things could be real game changers to bring back the work here,” Levinson said. She’s the co-chair of the legislative committee for Producers United, a 3-year-old group that advocates for established TV and film producers. That position led her to join the coalition of groups working to get the federal bill passed.
TV and film production and post-production used to be dominated by California, and L.A. County in particular. But Hollywood, as it refers to what you see on the big and small screen, is a national business now.
“Everybody in this country is behind this federal incentive. And therefore, that's why it's become such a bipartisan effort because there's production in every state right now,” Levinson said.
Supporters have not said how much less money would go to public coffers if this federal tax credit passes.
Topline:
A long-running court battle between California veterans and the Trump administration will continue, as federal officials consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s order to build more housing for unhoused L.A. veterans.
What does the decision mean? A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to temporarily pause the order to construct more than 2,500 new housing units on the Veterans Affairs campus in West L.A.
Background: The years-long court battle was initiated in 2023 by veterans struggling with homelessness in L.A. The case has centered on the 400-acre V.A. campus, which U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has ruled should offer more housing to the approximately 2,250 veterans experiencing homelessness in L.A. County.
What’s next? VA officials now have until Dec. 10 to decide whether to appeal their fight to the Supreme Court. Judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told lawyers for the federal government that if they do not decide to appeal by Dec. 10, “the stay will be lifted immediately.”
Read on… to see what veteran advocates have to say about the latest development.
A long-running court battle between California veterans and the Trump administration will continue, as federal officials consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s order to build more housing for unhoused L.A. veterans.
A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to temporarily pause the order to construct more than 2,500 new housing units on the Veterans Affairs campus in West L.A.
Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel representing the plaintiffs, told LAist the delay could spell life or death for unhoused veterans, especially as the region braces for strong El Niño-driven storms.
“These are veterans who risked their lives and suffered both the visible and invisible wounds of war,” Rosenbaum said. “What the government is saying to them is, you're supposed to stay on the street."
VA officials did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.
Veterans' lawyers in a court filing called a possible appeal to the Supreme Court a “hopeless shot.”
“The government has lost every time they have taken this to court. No court has ruled for them on any of these matters,” Rosenbaum told LAist. “This is part of the administration’s war on its own veterans, and it’s time for that war to come to an end.”
The litigation was initiated in 2023 by L.A. veterans struggling with homelessness. The case has centered on the 400-acre V.A. campus, which U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has ruled should offer more housing to the approximately 2,250 veterans experiencing homelessness in L.A. County.
In 2024, Carter ordered officials to add thousands of temporary and permanent homes, and end leases with UCLA, a private K-12 school and an oil drilling company, which he said did not serve the needs of veterans.
An appeals court last month blocked the federal government’s efforts to halt the housing construction. But veteran advocates knew that federal officials could ask for further delays as the case winds through the courts.
VA officials now have until Dec. 10 to decide whether to appeal their fight to the Supreme Court. Judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told lawyers for the federal government that if they do not decide to appeal by Dec. 10, “the stay will be lifted immediately.”
Topline:
The Los Angeles Unified School District shortened the application window for specialized academic programs this year, and will no longer accept paper forms. Applications for the district’s magnet, dual-language and affiliated charter schools for the next academic year opened Oct. 1 and are due Nov. 6, 2026.
The backstory: If you want your child to attend their neighborhood school, enrollment is fairly straightforward; there’s a separate process for the district’s specialized programs called Choices.
Those include:
What's next: LAUSD also hosts fairs, organized by geographic region, where multiple schools table and share information about their programs, through mid-October. The on-time application deadline is Nov. 6, 2026, and the late application process starts Dec. 1.
Read on … to learn more about the Choices process and all the options available.
The Los Angeles Unified School District shortened the application window for specialized academic programs this year, and will no longer accept paper forms.
Applications for the district’s magnet, dual language and affiliated charter schools for the next academic year opened Oct. 1 and are due Nov. 6, 2026.
If you want your child to attend their neighborhood school, enrollment is fairly straightforward. There’s a separate process for the district’s specialized programs called Choices.
There are two windows to apply — on-time and late. The latter consists of all the spaces left after families who applied on time accept their offers.
Here’s the timeline for the 2027-28 school year:
LAUSD will no longer accept paper Choices applications. If families do not have a computer, they can use a smartphone to complete an application. LAUSD will also allow families to use computers at school parent centers.
Every child within LAUSD boundaries is assigned a school — find yours through the district’s “resident school identifier.”
But there are also hundreds of other programs available through the Choices process.
Those include:
No one type of school is inherently better than another, and no one metric defines a great school — there are many factors beyond test scores to consider, and we go over some of those here.
By far the most frequent piece of advice we’ve heard is to go on an in-person school tour if possible.
“The very best thing that people can do is go to the school and try to watch the way that educators interact with students, the way that students interact with each other, and the way that families are included or not in the life of a school,” said Jack Schneider, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, education researcher and parent. “Once you do that, you really get a sense of what kind of place kids are going to school.”
Some schools post tour information online, but you may need to call for details.
LAUSD also hosts fairs, organized by geographic region, where multiple schools table and share information about their programs, through mid-October.
Topline:
The Justice Department found Thursday that the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions.
DOJ findings: The Justice Department’s investigation found UCLA’s law school discriminated against white and Asian American students by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants in its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. Its analysis found the mean LSAT score was lower for admitted Black applicants than for admitted white applicants.
The backstory: Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling forbade it. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but President Donald Trump has accused colleges of using applicants’ personal statements and other proxies to consider race in admissions — which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.
The Justice Department found Thursday that the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions.
The announcement follows a similar finding against the university’s medical school and comes as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up scrutiny of colleges’ processes for selecting students. The administration also has accused the UC Berkeley Law School and the medical school at the University of California, San Diego, of illegally discriminating against white and Asian applicants.
The UCLA School of Law said in a statement that it was committed to making admissions decisions in compliance with all applicable laws.
“Students are admitted through a comprehensive, merit-based review process that considers each applicant’s achievements and experiences,” the statement said. “We are confident in our process.”
Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling forbade it. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but Trump has accused colleges of using applicants’ personal statements and other proxies to consider race in admissions — which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.
The Justice Department’s investigation found UCLA’s law school discriminated against white and Asian American students by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants in its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. Its analysis found the mean LSAT score was lower for admitted Black applicants than for admitted white applicants.
The department also said admissions staff at the law school instructed applicants during recruitment efforts, including one called the “Diversity Admissions Open House,” how to reveal their race in essays.
“Like many of its peer institutions, UCLA Law School runs a two-tiered admissions system whose academic bar for acceptance shifts up or down depending on the color of your skin,” said Harmeet Dhillon, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, in a news release.
California voters ended affirmative action in college admissions in a 1997 ballot measure. In a brief filed in the Supreme Court case, the UC system said the change led to a precipitous drop in underrepresented minorities, especially at the system’s most selective campuses. The brief said UC went on to implement a range of race-neutral measures to increase diversity.
The Trump administration also has sued over the main UCLA campus’s response to allegations of antisemitic harassment. The administration’s latest finding sets the stage for a voluntary resolution to bring UCLA into compliance with the Justice Department’s legal interpretation or, if none can be reached, potential legal action.
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